javascript must be enabled in your web browser to use all the features at ureka.org.
javascript is either disabled, blocked or not supported by your web browser.
ureka.org and jsdelivr.net must both be allowed to load javascript files.advice: enable javascript by changing your web browser's options, then reload the page.
(tip: how to enable javascript in your browser.)

videos

After a couple of weeks of hard work, we now have a fully featured Steem wallet at ureka.org. Ureka: Earth heart community is a fully featured social network that is aimed at helping us heal, balance...

I am pleased to announce that the foundation level of features integration of Steem at www.ureka.org is now live. Ureka users can crosspost to the Steem blockchain, comment, vote and earn rewards for...

As you may be aware, I have been very busy recently writing lots of code and making many improvements to @ureka. The main focus, besides general maintenance, has been to integrate the #steem blockchain into Ureka, to produce a hybrid Steem dApp (Decentralised App) that both supports the benefits of the Steem blockchain and the benefits of a centralised social network. In this post I'll be going over some of these benefits and letting you know where I'm up to and where Ureka is going this year (allegedly, somehow the 2019th year - apparently...) ;).

What makes a decentralised social network great?

In the case of Steem, any social network/app that uses it will benefit from:

Freedom: Immutable content storage (very hard to censor).

Community: A built in audience (Steem has over 1 million accounts created and over 50,000 regular users).

Financial Incentives: Directly receive reward payments in cryptocurrency that can be used in the real world to buy things. Ensuring that content creators are paid and not the middle men (so much). Steem turns social networks into socio-economic networks for those who want to use those features and those who don't can just ignore them.

Audience Engagement: A generally creative and intelligent audience, looking to improve the world (more-so than other networks).

Community Governance: The ability for anyone to gain power in the network just by buying in. This might seem to be a downside on one hand, since it means that the network is always for sale - but on the flip-side, it means that if the world desires the network to be free, then it can be - without needing difficult corporate takeovers or similar.

Fully Open Source: If the network becomes corrupted, it can be 'forked' and duplicated - remade in a new image - with no interference possible from the 'bad actors'.

Clearly, these are features that are rare in the world of social networks and to have them all in one place is very inspiring for anyone who knows their value and our need for them.

What makes a centralised social network great?

Ureka.org, like Facebook, Minds and others is a centralised social network. This means that currently, it runs from a private infrastructure that the public cannot participate in running (unlike Steem). This has some benefits over the decentralised model:

Privacy: Data can be held privately on behalf of the members of the community.

Evolution: Changes and new features can be added (by me) without needing the agreement of third parties - to match the needs of the community.

Boundaries: The rules and terms of the community can be defined independently to meet the needs of the community.

Resources: Code can be used from a wider range of open source projects since centralised project are more common/prevalent currently.

The Best of Both Worlds

Steem has always been intended to be used in a variety of contexts, including niche community networks and the recent addition of Steem-Engine and the soon to be released Smart Media Tokens (SMT) - plus baked-in community features for the Steem Blockchain - mean that community integration of Steem is about to get far more exciting and possible.

The challenge facing any social network and community site in this situation is how to design a system that best meets the needs of the people involved. We want the great, cutting edge features of Steem, but we don't necessarily want to lose the 'old world' features associated with social networks, such as privacy that allows us to post only for our friends or specific groups, for example.

The future for Ureka is a design that combines these two realities, allowing both privacy and full exploitation of the public blockchain! Maybe this is a first? I'm not 100% sure on that, let me know in the comments if you've seen this done before!

New Features at Ureka.org

In recent weeks I have roughly reached the halfway point in terms of integrating Steem into Ureka. The following features are already live at Ureka and can be used today:

Authorise your Steem account using SteemConnect.

Create posts in Ureka and crosspost them to Steem (and link on Twitter).

Auto update posts on Steem when they are edited on Ureka (and vice versa).

Auto sync comments from Steem into posts on Ureka (including posting to Steem from users of Ureka who don't have steem accounts) - merging the audiences.

Upvote posts and comments on Steem.

View who has voted on posts.

Delete comments on Steem.

Keep track of your tokens and wallet data via a custom wallet - including ability to power up/down, delegate/cancel, save/withdraw and send tokens.

Create a new account for Steem via Steem Ninja.

Receive email notifications via Ureka's own email system when comments are made on your Steem content posted via Ureka (if you like).

Coming Soon

To complete the initial integration of Steem, I will be adding the following in the coming weeks, as time allows:

Support for Steem Keychain.

Downvoting button.

Estimated value of votes.

Speed optimisations - so that pages load faster.

A Steem action queue - similar to Steempeak's, to allow Steem actions, such as votes and comment postings, to be processed behind the scenes in a queue.

Decryption of encrypted messages in the wallet.

Relocating features from Steemocean.com to Ureka.org - this is to make Ureka more useful and to make maintenance easier for me.

Add list filters to allow only Steem posts to be viewed if desired.

Show related posts from Steem users who are not part of ureka.

Integrate the best way to allow private messages to be posted to Steem - allowing groups and friends in Ureka to upvote their own posts, without the rest of the world being able to read them.

Delegations and Community Building

So far, the entire development for this has been completed by me at my own expense. The current price of Steem is so low that I am even running my witness at a loss currently - so I cannot keep this up indefinitely. If you like the idea of having a social network hybrid that focuses on healing, balancing and evolving human consciousness - that uses cutting edge Steem technology and is always open to new ideas... Then please do consider delegating Steem Power to @ureka or @ura-soul. Please also do pass this on to others who might share that vision and wish.

It would be really great to be able to build enough of a delegation that the best posts from Ureka users can be guaranteed a nice upvote from Ureka and that is definitely in my vision here too. There is no plan, currently, for Ureka to take any beneficiary cuts from posts made here - but all options are being kept open.

Thanks for reading and if you have any feedback, I'd love to read it in your comments below.

After a couple of weeks of hard work, we now have a fully featured Steem wallet at ureka.org. Ureka: Earth heart community is a fully featured social network that is aimed at helping us heal, balance and evolve. Now, Ureka users can not only post to the Steem blockchain to earn rewards and reach a wider audience, but they can send tokens, delegate Steem Power, Power UP/Down, use their savings account, convert Steem/SBD and keep tracking of the market and their account history too!All are welcome to sign up at Ureka and check out the new wallet. Let me know if you have any feedback!Wishing you well,Ura Soul#steem #ureka #blockchain

I am pleased to announce that the foundation level of features integration of Steem at www.ureka.org is now live. Ureka users can crosspost to the Steem blockchain, comment, vote and earn rewards for their content on Ureka. There are some novel aspects to the way Steem works on Ureka since it has a pre-existing database and membership who can opt-in to use Steem - Ureka is not a purely Steem powered site.I have some exciting ideas for new features and some that I think are unique for any site on the Steem eco-system. Stay tuned for more soon :)#ureka #steem #technology

Here's a brief introduction to the new Steem blockchain features on Ureka.org. Ureka users can now crosspost to the Steem blockchain, comment, vote and earn rewards for their content on Ureka!

There are some novel aspects to the way Steem works on Ureka since it has a pre-existing database and membership who can opt-in to use Steem - Ureka is not a purely Steem powered site. I have some exciting ideas for new features and some that I think are unique for any site on the Steem eco-system. Stay tuned for more soon :)

I have been really hard at work for the last few weeks, integrating the Steem blockchain into the social network I run called Ureka.org: Earth Heart Community. I now have a functional Steem Dapp running over here - with ability to post to Steem, reply and vote on posts/comments. :)

Since Ureka is it's own social network, complete with groups and numerous other features - it stands to become a powerful Steem site once this integration process is completed. I still have a way to go - but the foundation is in place. At this point I can describe Ureka as a combination of: Facebook, Pinterest, Steem & Wikipedia in one! I may even add video features in a similar way to DTube at some point too.

I have deliberately waited before carrying out this work so that I could learn more about Steem and cryptocurrency in general, plus so that Steem's community features and SMTs are nearer to launch. I am not clear on when these new Steem features will be launched, but I am deliberately leaving the design of the integration of Steem as open as possible, so as to make any changes that come to Steem in the future as easy as possible to handle when the time comes.

As yet, there's no overview video or FAQ for Steem on Ureka, those will come soon. For now, if you'd like to drop in and say hello, you are welcome. You just need to create an account as you would on other social sites and then authorise your Steem account via SteemConnect so that you can crosspost and vote to Steem. Steem Keychain support is coming soon.

Since Ureka has it's own community and database, posts are saved to Ureka's server, but if you elect to crosspost them to Steem, then that thread/blog/thought becomes synced to Steem and Steem's data takes priority. It is also possible to unsync a thread if you want to. No beneficiary charges are set through Ureka currently, so it's free to use. I'm really looking for some feedback and testing currently. No money moves through Ureka whatsoever, all Ureka has access to is an authorisation token via Steemconnect to allow posting and voting. You can cancel that authorisation at any time in Ureka or via SteemConnect directly.

As you may be aware, I have been very busy recently writing lots of code and making many improvements to @ureka. The main focus, besides general maintenance, has been to integrate the #steem blockchain into Ureka, to produce a hybrid Steem dApp...

Here's a brief introduction to the new Steem blockchain features on Ureka.org. Ureka users can now crosspost to the Steem blockchain, comment, vote and earn rewards for their content on Ureka!There are some novel aspects to the way Steem works on...

I have been really hard at work for the last few weeks, integrating the Steem blockchain into the social network I run called Ureka.org: Earth Heart Community. I now have a functional Steem Dapp running over here - with ability to post to Steem,...

As part of the process of integrating Steem features into ureka, I have had to retire the 'discussions' part of the site. They were not really needed anyway as the 'thoughts' section of the site contains all of the features that discussions contain...